“It’s all much cleaner and lighter since the Fire!” Betty exclaimed. “And how pretty the sign-boards make the street. And, oh, Godmother, how pretty the dresses are.”
Even the more plainly-dressed business men, she thought, looked nice in their knee-breeches, brown stockings and ruffled shirts. But every now and then, beautifully-dressed young men passed her, wearing flowered waistcoats, white or coloured satin coats and silk stockings with knee-breeches. Their swords were fastened with broad sashes round the waist. Dainty lace ruffles fell over their hands. Under their arms they carried three-cornered hats, trimmed with gold lace, and their hair, rather long and powdered, was tied with a black ribbon. Nearly all of them carried gold snuff-boxes, and long gold-handled canes.
“The men are quite, if not more elegant, than the women, you see—in this reign of George the Second,” said Godmother. “Here comes one, however, who is by no means well-dressed,” she added, smiling.
Betty looked in the direction to which she pointed, and saw two figures approaching. One was a neat dapper gentleman, but the other was the oddest-looking individual! He wore shabby buckled shoes, black worsted stockings, all wrinkled, knee-breeches, a long coat of a rusty brown, and a wig much too small for him; old and unpowdered. He was stout, and clumsily made, moved very awkwardly, and had a large heavy face.
“It’s Dr. Johnson!” cried Betty. “And that’s Mr. Boswell with him, I suppose?”
“Yes, listening intently to every word he utters. He will rush home presently and write down every syllable of Dr. Johnson’s conversation, and later on, publish it in that wonderful Life of his friend. Well, now that we’ve had a glimpse of Fleet Street as it was in the eighteenth century, I’m going to whisk you off to look at the river. Shut your eyes and wish yourself standing on the Embankment somewhere close to Westminster Bridge.” ...
“Why, there’s no Embankment, and there’s no Westminster Bridge!” Betty exclaimed when she found herself standing at the edge of the river which washed right up to the houses on its banks. Remembering the many bridges to be seen from Westminster in our day, she looked right and left, but not one was visible.
“London Bridge, out of sight because of the winding of the river, is still the only bridge over the Thames, you will notice!” said Godmother. “They’re just beginning to build one here, where our Westminster Bridge now stands. But it isn’t finished yet, and one must still row from bank to bank.”
“And it’s still country on the other side,” Betty remarked, looking across the water at farms and clusters of cottages where now, immense buildings line the banks on the other side of the present Westminster Bridge. “And oh, Godmother, how strange not to see the Houses of Parliament of our time! They haven’t been built yet, of course? And that’s part of the Old Palace of Westminster that stands where our Houses of Parliament is now, I suppose?”